"Signature" taco walks are nice and all, but here area few random ideas among many that orgs like DNA might embrace to grow downtown every day, not every now and then.

The Louisville Independent Business Alliance (LIBA) has drawn up a strategic plan. LIBA stages the occasional event, but also pursues programs to enhance indie business prospects on a daily basis.

How LIBA plans to broaden the ‘buy local’ message, by Caitlin Bowling (Insider Louisville)

 ... “The ‘buy local’ message isn’t just about buying local, but it’s also about how buying local affects our community overall,” (Jennifer) Rubenstein said.

The key words in the following passage are "community leaders." Who are they, and are they really?

How Cities Can Save Small Shops, by Karen Loew (CityLab)

 ... Meanwhile, cities around the U.S. and the world are recognizing the value of homegrown retail and are enacting policies to enrich the frequently poor soil where small businesses attempt to grow. That’s because municipal leaders are realizing that the basis of any community is its sense of place—its singular look and feel, roots and aspirations—and local retail is essential to expressing that. Shops are part of culture—in addition, of course, to being the places where you can fix a shoe, find a dress, buy a coffee, and chit-chat ...

... This is the moment for mom-and-pop shops to assert their value proposition, says Olivia LaVecchia, a research associate at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Washington, D.C. “There’s really a failure to recognize what a powerhouse small businesses are,” says LaVecchia, citing their interdependency with other desirable local outcomes, such as maintenance of affordable housing and jobs.

A recent report from ILSR advocates six policy approaches that any locality can apply. These ideas lend themselves to being customized ...

The six points are summarized below, and it can be readily seen how an activist City Hall working with local independent businesses might devise and implement a customized program of work.

Of course, such a program by necessity would have to be designed to assist businesses first, and City Hall's re-election prospects later -- and both City Hall and an organization like DNA would have to be committed to daily results and not periodic event planning.

Affordable Space: How Rising Commercial Rents Are Threatening Independent Businesses, and What Cities Are Doing About It (Institute for Local Self-Reliance)

1. Broaden Ownership
2. Reduce the Power Imbalance in Landlord-Tenant Negotiations
3. Zone for a Local Business Environment
4. Set Aside Space for Local Businesses in New Development
5. Create a Preference for Local Businesses in Publicly Owned Buildings
6. Recognize Businesses as Cultural Landmarks

When it comes to owning an independent local business in an economy designed and subsidized to exalt big business over small, it simply has to be about every day, not every now and then.

Bernie Sanders: It looks as if an Independent is the current leader of a rudderless Democratic Party.

In the sense of an adaptive reuse borne of expedience, the Democratic Party's nuts and bolts might be useful in the short term. However, they'll need to be configured in a vastly different way pending an upgrade, and the leadership purge must be vast.

ON THE AVENUES: Don't be a Dickey, local Democrats. The verdict is in, and it's time for a change.

Thanks, Adam. There’ll be a little something extra in your pay packet. By the way, it’s a pink slip, and so very sorry about that exit door’s nasty overbite; the building commissioner should have made your landlord Warren Nash fix it, but well, you know how things like that work around here.

It's revealing that Bernie Sanders, an Independent, steps forward with a road map for the Democratic Party. Let the falling on swords begin.

Bernie Sanders: Where the Democrats Go From Here, by Bernie Sanders (New York Times)

Millions of Americans registered a protest vote on Tuesday, expressing their fierce opposition to an economic and political system that puts wealthy and corporate interests over their own. I strongly supported Hillary Clinton, campaigned hard on her behalf, and believed she was the right choice on Election Day. But Donald J. Trump won the White House because his campaign rhetoric successfully tapped into a very real and justified anger, an anger that many traditional Democrats feel.

I am saddened, but not surprised, by the outcome. It is no shock to me that millions of people who voted for Mr. Trump did so because they are sick and tired of the economic, political and media status quo ...

Vintage Fire Museum’s Chili Cook-Off is Nov. 14, and city's economic development plan is ... is ...

The Vintage Fire Museum soon will be moving to Jeffersonville, but for now it remains New Albanian. In the photo, Curt Peters previews the Museum's approaching fundraiser for the Board of Works audience earlier this week.

The Vintage Fire Museum’s 5th Annual Chili Cook-Off takes place on Thursday November 14, 2013 from 5:30-8:00 pm. It will be held at the The Grand on 138 E. Market St, New Albany, Indiana.

Following are the Top Three Things we know for sure about the Chili Cookoff.

1. The museum's restored 1937 flood-time floating fire truck (above) will be unveiled.
2. The chili will be good.
3. The Grand won't bother with craft beer at the cash bar for the occasion. Does it ever?

Sighhhh ... it's probably time to send Blake to The Grand and explain localism to them (again), but in the meantime, as we wish the best to the Vintage Fire Museum in transitional days to come, it's worth a reprise of thoughts published here in August.

---

What's the plan, and if there's a plan, how are we to know?

We now know that the Vintage Fire Museum will be moving to Jeffersonville, and that Curt Peters takes the high road (as always) in explaining the museum's ongoing regional basis while barely mentioning the nifty $500 a year lease making such a move inevitable.

Understandably, museum backers are disappointed. But we also know there are two sides to every story, and we've discussed the concept and implications of the fire museum in the past. It was never a panacea for New Albany, to be sure, but could have been a nice addition under favorable circumstances. You know ... as part of an overall plan.

Just let me try to explain, very briefly, what strikes me in all of this. It's not about the fire museum, itself. Primarily, it's that as various issues like this one come and go, and decisions are made (or not made), it is maddeningly difficult to see any pattern, and if there is one, it is a plan largely undertaken without substantive public input.

Consider the following, listed randomly.

• The UEA shifts part of its bounty to Quills, but Lancaster's moves to Clarksville.
• Taming the Main Street corridor is absolutely vital, but other looming grid necessities downtown (one-way streets impeding revitalization) are placed on the seemingly permanent back burner.
• Projects already in an advanced state of planning (Slate Run) suddenly look shaky, and for financial reasons.
• Millions of dollars for two new showpiece parks are declared a priority, but neighborhood pocket parks are not, and there is no consideration as to access for these new parks apart from autos.
• The riverfront amphitheater remains mostly unused, with all attention on Bicentennial Park.
• Another Harvest Homecoming almost is here, with no action or discussion with respect to its disruption of downtown revitalization. Why?
• Nearing the halfway point of the current administration, are there any ideas for downtown housing, parking, pedestrians and bicycles? If so, they've not been revealed.
• There is no currently strategy for coping with the dislocations of the bridges project.
  

My point is simple: What's the plan, and if there's a plan, how are we to know?

In the absence of substantive and sustained transparency, how can any of this be viewed other than as piecemeal and reactive?

Say what you like about Jeffersonville, but at least there seems to be something unified about its current planning direction, something that suggests awareness of challenges and complexities ahead.

Yes, New Albany's had a nice, non-threatening, Chautauqua-style Bicentennial celebration. Unfortunately, it looks increasingly like a wasted year, one during which too much money is being thrown at too few goals, none of which has yet to involve the public.

Is it too much to ask to have a plan, and for the plan to be shared?

What's the plan, and if there's a plan, how are we to know?

We now know that the Vintage Fire Museum will be moving to Jeffersonville, and that Curt Peters takes the high road (as always) in explaining the museum's ongoing regional basis while barely mentioning the nifty $500 a year lease making such a move inevitable.

Understandably, museum backers are disappointed. But we also know there are two sides to every story, and we've discussed the concept and implications of the fire museum in the past. It was never a panacea for New Albany, to be sure, but could have been a nice addition under favorable circumstances. You know ... as part of an overall plan.

Just let me try to explain, very briefly, what strikes me in all of this. It's not about the fire museum, itself. Primarily, it's that as various issues like this one come and go, and decisions are made (or not made), it is maddeningly difficult to see any pattern, and if there is one, it is a plan largely undertaken without substantive public input.

Consider the following, listed randomly.

• The UEA shifts part of its bounty to Quills, but Lancaster's moves to Clarksville.
• Taming the Main Street corridor is absolutely vital, but other looming grid necessities downtown (one-way streets impeding revitalization) are placed on the seemingly permanent back burner.
• Projects already in an advanced state of planning (Slate Run) suddenly look shaky, and for financial reasons.
• Millions of dollars for two new showpiece parks are declared a priority, but neighborhood pocket parks are not, and there is no consideration as to access for these new parks apart from autos.
• The riverfront amphitheater remains mostly unused, with all attention on Bicentennial Park.
• Another Harvest Homecoming almost is here, with no action or discussion with respect to its disruption of downtown revitalization. Why?
• Nearing the halfway point of the current administration, are there any ideas for downtown housing, parking, pedestrians and bicycles? If so, they've not been revealed.
• There is no currently strategy for coping with the dislocations of the bridges project.

My point is simple: What's the plan, and if there's a plan, how are we to know?

In the absence of substantive and sustained transparency, how can any of this be viewed other than as piecemeal and reactive?

Say what you like about Jeffersonville, but at least there seems to be something unified about its current planning direction, something that suggests awareness of challenges and complexities ahead.

Yes, New Albany's had a nice, non-threatening, Chautauqua-style Bicentennial celebration. Unfortunately, it looks increasingly like a wasted year, one during which too much money is being thrown at too few goals, none of which has yet to involve the public.

Is it too much to ask to have a plan, and for the plan to be shared?